John Martin

John Martin (1741–1820) was an English Particular Baptist minister.

Early life The son of John Martin (died 1767), a publican and grazier, by his wife Mary King, he was born at Spalding, Lincolnshire, on 15 March 1741. He was educated at Gosberton, and then at Stamford under Dr. Newark. Soon after his mother's death in 1756 he went as office-boy to an attorney at Holbeach, but became depressed.

Baptist minister In 1760 Martin moved to London to sit under John Gill. He was baptised by the Rev. Mr. Clark in a garden, Gamlingay, Bedfordshire, and joined the ministry of the Particular Baptists. He was called successively to Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, Shepshed in Leicestershire where he was an itinerant preacher, and in 1773 to Grafton Street Chapel in London. His ministry was successful, and a new meeting-house was built in Keppel Street, near Bedford Square, in 1795. ‘A Translation of Marolles's Essay on Providence,’ 1790. ‘A Speech on the Repeal of such parts of the Test and Corporation Acts as affect Conscientious Dissenters,’ 1790. ‘Animal Magnetism Examined,’ 1790. ‘A Letter to a Young Gentleman in Prison’ (under the pseudonym "Eubulus"), 1791. ‘A Review of some things pertaining to Civil Government,’ 1791. ‘The Character of Christ’ (seventeen sermons), 1793. ‘The Case of the Rev. John Sandys, in four Letters to Henry Keene, esq.,’ 1793. ‘Some Account of the Life and Writings of the Rev. John Martin.’ An autobiography in the form of letters, dated from Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, March 1797. 'An address to the Board of Baptist Ministers', 1798. ‘Letters on Nonconformity,’ 1800.

Joseph Ivimey also credited him with a pamphlet on ‘The Murder of the French King’ (1793).

Family In 1761 Martin married a Miss Jessup, daughter of a farmer near Sleaford; she died in 1765.